566 Notes on Mr. R. B. Sharpens Catalogue of Accipitres. 



Mr. Ridgway gives detailed descriptions of an old and a 

 young male^ and of an old and a young female*, to wliicli I 

 would refer, as Mr. Sharpe describes the male only, and that 

 but in one phase of plumage. I would only remark, with 

 reference to Mr. Ridgway^s description of the adult male, 

 that one character mentioned by him, viz. that " the black 

 runs along the edge of each feather [of the tail] bordering it 

 nearly to the base,^^ is not a constant one. Messrs. Salvin 

 and Godman possess three males in which it is entirely 

 wanting, and a fourth, in which it is absent from the two 

 external pairs of rectrices. 



I may add that, in the males which I have examined, the 

 under wing-coverts exhibit a mixture of slate-colour and 

 white, which in the younger males assumes the arrangement 

 of distinct transverse bars ; but in the females this part of 

 the plumage is of two shades of rufous. 



I may also observe that, in most adult males that I have 

 seen, the rufous feathers of the under tail-coverts are con- 

 spicuously tipped with white, whilst in the females these 

 feathers have a subterminal mark of dark brown. 



The following remarks as to the coloration of the young 

 of Cuban Kestrels, and perhaps of T. sparverioides in parti- 

 cular, are extracted from Dr. Gundlach's notes, to which I 

 have already referred : — " The young males are not marked 

 like the females, as d^Orbigny assumes ; I have reared young 

 birds from the nest, and found that when full-grown they 

 were distinguished from the old birds only by a darker 

 colour and more numerous spots. ^^ It is, however, possible 

 that Dr. Gundlach here refers to the young of T. domini- 

 censis, as he holds the opinion of there being no valid specific 

 distinction between T. dorninicensis and T. sparverioides, 

 and his meaning is, in consequence, in this passage, 

 obscure. 



I have taken the following measurements from specimens 

 of T. sparverioides : — 



* By an evident misprint, Mr. Ridgway's description of the old female 

 bears the prefix S instead of $ . 



